In the current society, importance on environmental issues has been recognized increasingly more than before. In addition, consumers and investors have become strict to choose enterprises on the basis of their consideration on environment. The enterprises are therefore required to have future subjects for environmental protective activities as well as previously performed benefit creative activities.
In terms of effective use of resources and reduction of wastes, the enterprises are urgently required to establish a system for recycling and using reusable products, components and materials. With respect to such the recycling, processing manners (process levels) can be roughly classified into the following classification.
1. Home Reuse,
Home reuse is defined as a process of recycle performed by the user of a product to reuse a part of the product (such as a component). For example, in a copier, it corresponds to a process of refilling toner in a toner container for reuse by the user itself. In this case, a recycling object (the toner container in the above example) will not lower its value. Accordingly, the home reuse can be considered as a processing manner (process level) that has the largest effect and the least cost on environmental load reduction.
2. Product Reuse,
Reuse of products is defined as a process of recycle for performing a certain recycling process to used products themselves collected from the market, which are so-called collected machines, to reuse them as recycled machines. In this processing, the major part of the product can be employed as such, exhibiting an extremely large effect on environmental load reduction.
3. Component Reuse,
Reuse of components is defined as a process of recycle for removing components or units from the collected machines to reuse them as units or components for new products. In this processing, the components or units, which are otherwise produced with a considerable amount of energy consumed on processing and the like, can be employed in recycled machines, exhibiting a large effect on environmental load reduction.
4. Material Recycle,
Recycle of materials is defined as a process of recycle for decomposing and fractionating the collected machines into basic materials, thereafter performing a certain processing to them for reuse as recycled materials. This processing includes the closed-loop material recycle for reusing them as materials of products in the same field and the open-loop material recycle for reusing them as materials of products in different fields.
5. Recycle to Raw Materials,
Recycle to raw materials is defined as a process of recycle for decomposing and fractionating the collected machines and finally returning them to a raw material level for reuse. This processing is effective to achieve zero-waste.
6. Energy Recovery,
Energy recovery is defined as a process of burning plastics, for example, to effectively utilize their thermal energy.
The above processing manners (process levels) 1 to 6 have effects on the environmental load reduction in an order of 1, the most desirable, then 2, 3, . . . Therefore, it is important for specific recycle promotion to continuously recycle in the upper process as long as possible.
In practice, however, a process can not be continued on a semi-permanent basis only at the upper level of the above process levels, for example, the “Home reuse”. It is therefore required to abandon the process after a certain time period. Because the function of the product is degraded after a certain time period and the function itself becomes useless already in the market (or to the user).
In that case, the recycle performed at the upper process is forced to transfer to the lower process (for example, the matter recycled at the “Home reuse” transfers to the process 2 or below). Thus, the process transferred lower is employed to recycle again for a certain time period. If it is degraded, then sequentially transferred to a further lower process.
In the recycle, therefore, it is not sufficient to perform either one of the above processes 1 to 6. Rather, it is important to perform all the processes to stand the environmental protective activities together with the benefit creative activities.
In such the situation, importance on the “Material recycle”, in particular on the closed-loop material recycle has been remarked recently. The material recycle described above is considered as an important processing. Because it is possible “to more easily create a new function (value)” compared to the three upper processes described above. In a word, it has an advantage on profit creation.
In the recycles performed in the “Home reuse”, “Product reuse” and “Component reuse”, functions of objects to be reused are directly developed in the next recycled machines (the products in the case of the home reuse) and accordingly hardly improved. In new products having renewed functions compared to the conventional products, the higher the function renewal level, the harder the above three recycle processes respond.
On the other hand, through the use of objective materials to produce entirely new components, the material recycle can be applied to new products with improved or renewed functions. Because the material recycle in the first place means a cycle to “reuse a property of material” to “newly create a matter provided with new functions”.
The material recycle has a characteristic that is also in common with the process of the “Recycle to raw materials”. The process of recycle to raw materials is a process of returning the material to its original state of raw material and accordingly has a disadvantage because it requires an increased number of process steps compared to the material recycle. In general, the “Recycle to raw materials” is disadvantageous in cost compared to the material recycle.
Of the material recycles, when the closed-loop material recycle is compared with the open-loop material recycle, the closed-loop material recycle is more excellent in multi-time circulation of resources, in other words, in possibility of many-time usability.
The Inventors et al. report effects on the environmental protection in the publication, “OA MACHINES” (“PLASTICS AGE ENCYCLOPEDIA <Progressed version> 2000”, Oct. 1991). In this report, LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) technology is utilized to compare loads on the environment. One load is imparted from an entirely new production and another from a production by the closed-loop material recycle. The result demonstrates that the closed-loop material recycle is more effective on the environmental protection.
The success or failure of the closed-loop material recycle therefore determines the success or failure of the environmental protection challenged by an enterprise while maintaining the profit creation.
In the objective materials of the material recycle, the plastic closed-loop material recycle (hereinafter referred to as PCMR, if required) has further increased importance on recycling OA machines such as copiers from the following ground.
A copier is often employed in an office due to its characteristic of product. Therefore, from the viewpoint of the office security, the copier is required to have extremely high-level fire prevention or flame redundancy. This need is fundamentally an issue necessarily kept based on the fire-related law.
A component of plastic material in the copier, for example, an exterior cover employs a plastic that contains a flame-redundant agent. The flame-redundant agent for use in the plastic is roughly classified into halogen series mainly containing bromine and non-halogen series, both of which influence greatly on the environment.
In consideration of future risks on environmental loads, desirably, OA machine makers themselves can control the flame-redundant agent through recycling. In comparison with the plastic open-loop material recycle that reuses plastics for products in other fields, PCMR can ensure the control more reliably because it reuses them in the same field (its own products).
Thus, the success or failure of PCMR can be considered important particularly for OA machine makers to achieve successful recycles.
Various technologies are disclosed in the art with the aim of efficient recycling. A first prior art is found in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H7-334583A, entitled “System for recycling products”. This system comprises an “input unit” for use in entering product-related information, a “storage unit” for storing a database of information on reuse of products. It also comprises a “recycling method determination unit”, which refers to the database information stored in the “storage unit”, based on the product-related information entered from the “input unit”, for determining a recycling method that relates to the product based on predetermined recycle rules. It further comprises a “recycling plant facility controller unit”, which serves as an output unit that supplies the determined result to the next step.
The above prior art may be applied to the closed-loop material recycle such as PCMR. The technology in the publication, however, is designed to determine a recycling method based on “information added to a product”. Therefore, it causes a problem because of difficulty to determine appropriate closed-loop material recycling in a system that includes a “unit for reading information added to a collected machine”.
An information system like the above prior art manages recycling units in a hierarchical structure that defines an order of product→component→material from the upper. In this structure, a basic matter is a machine (product) collected, a smaller matter is a component mounted on it, and a much smaller matter is a material contained in the component. Such the information system may cause a step in steps for recycling, which is difficult to read information (in turn determine a recycling unit).
When the collected machine passes through PCMR and reaches to a stage for producing recycled components (molding recycled plastic components in this case) or a stage for finally assembling a recycled machine, original traces of the collected machine (product) are hardly remained. Therefore, it may be often impossible to read out information.
In practice, there are various types of original collected machines (products), which are mixed (the same materials are extracted from various products and mixed) followed by recycling. In this case, the recycled plastic components can not correspond to the original collected machines one by one, resulting in a problem because of complicated matching with the “processing manners”.
The above problem is derived from the following ground. There is a trend to divide a recycle into plural steps. In addition, it is difficult to complete a recycle in a single enterprise so as to achieve the profit creation and environmental protection simultaneously. Therefore, plural enterprises may often share and perform the role cooperatively while dividing steps. The above problem is also derived from the next point. The “product” is a complete article created in a single enterprise. Therefore, the cooperatively recycling enterprises can not always share the concept of the “product” as a basic matter.
The above problem can be avoided in a system for constructing a product making process, commonly called an “artery”. A material maker creates materials, from which a component maker creates components, from which a product maker creates final products. In this case, what each maker considers as its own “products” (that is, materials, components and final products) may be different from one another. Even though, they can be grasped hierarchically as the final product and its constituent elements, which are uniquely associated with each other. The prior art applies this concept in a “vein” that begins from collection of products.
The following problem is present in the closed-loop material recycle that “creates products” using circulation through the “artery” and “vein”. The closed-loop material recycle employs a work for fractionating a large element into smaller elements (for example, fractionation of a product into basic materials) to a certain stage in specific works. In contrast, from the middle in the specific works, it employs a work for bonding small elements to form a larger element (from recycled materials to a recycled machine). At this stage, a problem is caused because a hierarchical relation among “products→components→materials” is corrupted and the unique association can not be kept.
The above described “System for recycling products” in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H7-334583A is effective only when it is limited in the “artery” or “vein”. To the contrary, there is a problem because a total form like PCMR that has the continuously ringed “artery” and “vein” can not stand in the recycle system.
The above prior art has another problem because the system is not suitable for collecting machines. In other words, when the prior art system is operated practically, work items may be different in accordance with types of collected machines, for example. This causes a problem because the works can not be performed smoothly and a work plan on daily recycle is interfered.
The above prior art has a further problem because the system is not suitable for performing “recycle” that is an essential step in PCMR, for example. In this first prior art, only the same contents as those in the above mentioned recycle processes (6 types) are described and there is no specific content to stabilize the quality of recycled materials. Therefore, recycling operations can not be performed smoothly.
Other prior arts than the above example include a technology disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2000-84532, entitled “System for recycling waste industrial products”. This system first attaches an electronic tag on a waste product to allow a reader/writer to read and write data necessary for processing. It writes basic data, necessary for processing, into the electronic tag at the time and place for receiving the waste product from the client. Thereafter, it reads, writes and overwrites data to determine a suitable processing route per product. In addition, it measures characteristics of plastic materials and writes the result in the electronic tag. Assortment of decomposed components is performed by attaching an electronic tag on a palette, reading data from the electronic tag attached to the waste product and, based on this data, writing an assorted destination code in the electronic tag on the palette.
The second prior art has the same problem as that in the first prior art because basic matters of objects managed by the electronic tags are “waste industrial products” that are collected machines.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2000-126749, entitled “Recycle management system”, also discloses a conventional technology. This recycle management system is applied to a recycling plant that runs a series of plural processes beginning from receipt of process objects and reaching to shipment of them. After the plural processes are applied sequentially to the process objects, process data on the process objects is acquired and sent to the database every time each of the plural processes is performed.
This third prior art has the same problem as those in the first and second prior arts.